before I breathe
by planet p
Summary: Set after the events of this novel. Duke/Siobhán
1. Chapter 1

**before I breathe** by planet p

**Disclaimer** Based on the characters – Duke Rawlins and Siobhán Fallon – from her 2005 debut novel, _Darkhouse_, by Alex Barclay, and the property of Alex Barclay.

**Author's Notes** I didn't like the ending. So yeah, I think it's safe to assume this is AU.

It's Duke, so it's going to be disturbing, though I'm trying hard to make it Duke/Siobhán, which could just be more disturbing, depending on your viewpoint.

Who am I kidding, though, like anyone's seriously going to read this, or didn't like the ending of this novel either, in which case, they'll look at it and go 'nah, not really interested.'

Text in italics taken from page 74 of the novel, _Darkhouse_, and property of Alex Barclay.

* * *

He was drunk. He'd had far too much alcohol not to be: bourbon, scotch, scotch, some disgustingly sweet cocktail he thought he'd try because he'd liked the sound of the name on the laminated card, bourbon again. God, he hated bourbon! Yeah, and he'd gotten drunk.

She stood in the doorway, ginger hair, in a black plastic trench coat and disgustingly high high heels, also black.

For a moment, he wanted to hit her, or punch her, just keep hitting her, but then she was speaking. American accent, like John Wayne, an occasional lilt of something else, something foreign, intriguing. Every time he thought he'd got it, he knew what it was, it slid away again, from his grasp. It could have been the alcohol – bourbon – he supposed.

"A gift…" she said… "from James…" she continued – a new friend – words like snatches from a conversation overheard, too far away, trying not to be seen, to be discovered, to hear all of it properly, though she was standing right there in front of him. Right there in the doorway with her ginger hair and disgustingly high high heels.

And he couldn't stop staring at her. Not at her body, he had no idea what it looked like under that black plastic trench coat. He was staring into her eyes, gazing into his own, dark brown eyes, unlike his own bright blue eyes, smiling.

"What's your name?" he asked, and heard his voice slur, and instantly detested it.

"I'm Pepper," she replied warmly, whilst he stared at her legs. The trench coat ended midway along her thighs and from what he could see of her legs, they looked good. He wrenched his eyes away from her legs and let them travel back up to her smiling face. "May I come inside?" she asked, the vampire at the door, and he had the sudden urge to find a mirror.

He stared into her smiling face a moment longer – she wasn't wearing lipstick, he decided, but maybe a little chapstick or Lip Smacker – and took an awkward, half-stumbling step backward to allow her inside.

She stepped inside and, without turning, closed the door behind her. He heard the lock snap neatly into place. "What about you?" she asked, but he was staring at her shoes.

"What?" he said.

"What would you like me to call you? Your name… or something else?"

For a moment, a small moment, he thought about telling her that his name was Donny – a true friend, dead now – changed his mind, decided on the truth. "Duke."

She beamed, and it made her eyes shimmer.

He wondered if she would laugh, or cry, he couldn't be sure, but then he remembered his manners. "Why don't you find somewhere to sit?" he offered, voice slurring horribly again, and gestured around the room with one sweeping movement of his hand and arm which threatened to unbalance him for a brief moment.

"I would love to," Pepper replied, still smiling, as though she hadn't noticed his slurring, nor his unsteadiness on his feet, but then she walked up to him, disgustingly high high heels clicking deliciously on the floor, and held out a folded arm, at which he stared for a long moment, before finally taking and walking across the room with her to the bed, heels clicking all the while.

When he let his arm slide from hers, her small hand somehow ended up covering his larger hand, pressed into the mattress, like girlfriend and boyfriend on their first 'time,' and he wanted to be sick. "What's that you've got on your lips?" he asked.

"Chapstick," she told him, smiling secretly to the mattress or their clasped hands, dark gaze cast downward.

"What flavour?" he asked.

She lifted her chin to meet his gaze, smiling. "It was dark," she confided. "I didn't see."

He leant across, grabbing her upper arms for support, and planted his lips on hers for a short moment before pulling away. "Strawberry," he reported, wanting to be sick again and wishing she would take her hand off his. Little girls wore strawberry chapstick, or women wanting to be teenagers again.

His molten blue eyes hardened and he stared at her critically, stared at her body with a harsh gaze and decided that she was not overweight, but she was not slim either, though she was fair-skinned and without freckles save for a few dark spots he would not have called freckles either way.

"Take the coat off," he told her, voice ever slurring, and she stood, hastening to comply, steady on her disgustingly high high heels.

He stared at the large dark spot – mole – on her left shoulder, the thin white line on her right arm, the piercing in her navel – wondered if it had hurt when she'd had it done – with the strawberry-shaped stud, the fair skin, trench coat now laying across her feet on the floor.

She was standing in front of him, completely naked. He looked up, into her face, but she wasn't blushing. The girlfriend on her first 'time' would have blushed, he thought, and wondered how many times she had done this before, and wanted to hit her and be sick.

He stared at her large, soft breasts, pale like the rest of her, at the curve of her hips and the small of her back, the swell of her small belly, at her tiny pale feet hidden beneath the black plastic of the discarded trench coat, and pulled her towards him, into his arms.

She landed in his lap, her backside soft and warm and plump, and gazed steadily into his eyes. He hated the way she stared into his eyes, and the way he stared right back.

Afterward, he'd stared at her back as she lay beside him, facing away from him now – she'd been facing him before she'd turned over – and at the two perfectly triangle marks there, white like the thin white line on her arm. Then she'd turned over and rested her ginger head on his chest, and she was so warm, and he remembered how much shorter than him she'd been without her disgustingly high high heels when he'd backed her up against the wall, skin smelling of strawberries, and when she squirmed out of his hold and run away from him and he'd dragged her, kicking and squealing and giggling, back to bed.

In the morning, he tried to remember why he hadn't killed her, but she was gone now, and the strawberry smell gone with her. He was glad, he'd never liked strawberries.

* * *

**Six months later**

Duke was sitting at a small table in a university cafeteria – the university Keiran attended, at the table next to the one where Keiran usually sat – thinking about nothing else but Keiran – wondering why her parents had named her Keiran, which was a male's name, and not Keira, which was the name of the slim English actress who'd wanted to 'bend it like Beckham' – when he was interrupted by a voice to his right and looked around to see, first, a writing pad and a pen held in two small pale hands over a sizeably swollen belly in an apron, and then, a whole short, equally pale woman, with ginger hair.

"What can I get you, sir?" the woman asked distractedly, John Wayne accent mixed with a little lilt of something else, fair skin looking just a little more sunned, and a new freckle on her nose waiting to be licked.

He pushed down the strange urge to jump to his feet and pull her into his arms and lick the freckle on her nose, and felt angry and sick again, and had to push down the urge to yell at her for wearing that stupid strawberry perfume or body mist or whatever it was that made her skin smell like strawberries.

The name tag pinned to the breast of her apron told him that her name was Pepper. He stared, frozen in shock and anger, at the three blood red ruby studs in the top of her right ear, the gold and maroon hawk pin on her lapel.

-

_The waitress stopped when she saw Duke__. "Hiya," she said, awkward and eager. "I'll be with you in a minute."_

_She poured juice for the boy, then squeezed back behind the counter._

"_Now. What can I get you?" she said._

"_Could I get a beef taco and Coke?" Duke said, smiling as he looked into her eyes. He squinted at her name tag: Siobhán. "Sy-o-ban? Is that your name?" he asked._

_She laughed. "It's pronounced Shiv-awn," she said. "It's Irish."_

_He smiled again. "Savawn? That's not easy to say."_

* * *

Siobhán was dead. She'd died two years ago in Ireland. He'd killed her himself.

He felt too sick to be sitting here in front of all these people, too sick and too angry. He had started to shake, either out of anger or sickness, he couldn't tell.

Siobhán had been fat – God had she been fat! – and gullible and weak. He'd killed Siobhán. But he hadn't killed Pepper.

He pushed himself roughly to his feet, too angry even to care if Keiran had come in, if Keiran was watching. He'd killed that fat bitch! Now here she was – wearing his pin!

He fixed his hard gaze on the door and forced his feet to follow. Any moment now, Pepper would finish her silent conversation with her boss and turn back to him, and he didn't plan on sticking around for that. He wasn't sure he wouldn't just lose it and kill her right there in front of everyone.

He strode stiffly and determinately toward the door, thinking over and over, _Pepper can't be Siobhán_, and knowing each time that he was wrong. Siobhán and Pepper were the same person, or at least they shared the same body. Siobhán wasn't dead.

* * *

From outside, Duke saw Siobhán – Pepper – turn back to the now empty table and say something, dark eyes apologetic, saw her frown as she realised she was talking to no one, and wondered if she'd known it was him sitting at the table.

Across the cafeteria, he saw Keiran walk in with a girl friend and join the queue at the counter.

Back at the table, Pepper had taken a seat in the chair he'd just left, writing pad and pen discarded on the floor, one hand pressed to her belly, the other clutching the table edge in a death grip.

He turned away from the sight. Keiran was still waiting in line, but was now holding a muesli and fruit fitness bar. He finally turned away from Keiran too – she was talking to another cafeteria worker, asking for a cappuccino – and walked away.

* * *

**Two weeks later**

It was stupid. He should have been paying attention, but he'd been paying attention to Marietta instead. It was too stupid for words.

Apparently the bus driver wasn't paid to pay attention, either. What an idiot!

* * *

**Six months later**

Duke interrupted James – he was talking about racing, monster trucks – to ask if he'd had any visitors whilst he'd been in the coma, other visitors, not him. He would be leaving soon, with or without the doctor's consent. He hated hospitals, could not stand the places.

As he was waiting for James's reply, he wondered what Marietta was doing.

James frowned, first narrowing one eye and then the other. "A woman," he said, glancing at Duke now. "I asked what she was doing, but she wouldn't say. Then I asked her name, but she wouldn't say that either, except she didn't really need to, it was on the badge she was wearing."

"What was it?" Duke asked, thinking first of his mother, Wanda, then of his wife, Sammi, and wondered when the FBI were going to bust in, guns drawn, and stop James from telling him who the woman had been.

"What?" James said.

"The name?" Duke snapped, losing patience. James could be working for them, he thought suddenly. James could be working for the FBI.

James squinted, as though visualising the badge with the name written on it. "Peter? Or something like that," he said. "Is that a woman's name?"

Duke shook his head. He didn't care if Peter was a woman's name or not. "I don't know," he said. "What about Pepper? Was that the name?"

James sat back in his chair. "Pepper? Yeah."

Duke laughed. James was too stupid to be working for the FBI! "What was she doing?" he asked.

"What?" James said again.

"What was Pepper doing?" Duke snapped. He didn't care how stupid James was, his inattention was starting to become annoying. Pepper could have been slowly poisoning him for all he knew. The bitch had gotten what she'd wanted, she'd gotten laid, what more did she fucking want?

"I think she was reading some book, like, out loud," James told him.

Duke stared at him ridiculously.

"One of those books with pictures and stuff in them," James continued the tale. "Stupid rhymes and stuff."

Duke made a face. He wanted to laugh. She had been reading him a picture book! Stupid bitch! Trying to poison his mind with children's storybooks! What the fuck was her problem?

"I heard her say," James said, watching the television across the room, "to a nurse, that you had a daughter – together, you know – but I knew she was lying."

Duke frowned. "How did you know that?" he asked, fighting to keep his voice level, though he was suddenly very angry.

"She said the daughter's name was Captain," James reported vaguely. "Nobody would name their daughter Captain."

* * *

Duke was walking in the underground parking, thinking vaguely of calling a cab, calling James, stealing a car, when he stepped around a BMW and saw a short woman with ginger hair, crossing the concrete road between parking spaces on her way toward the elevator.

Before he could stop it – surprise was a powerful tool – he'd screamed across the parking lot, voice echoing off the ceiling and floor and walls and parked cars. "Sheba, you fucking bitch!"

Pepper looked around at the angry yell, saw him, and turned and ran.

Back toward her car, he supposed, racing after her.

She dropped her key at the door to her car – made him smile – and stooped and snatched the key back up in time to turn and back into the side of her car, key held out in front of her as though in a vague threatening manner, hand surprising steady.

He smiled, standing less than a car's distance from her now, thought about clapping, changed his mind.

"My name is Siobhán," she told him defiantly, dark eyes slate flat, John Wayne accent firmly in place. "It's 'Siobhán, you fucking bitch!'"

Duke laughed, surprising even himself, and made a face to cover, as though it had been part of the plan all along, and took half a step backward in mock amazement.

Siobhán – Pepper – laughed right back in his face, taking him, once more, by surprise.

What had happened to weak, gullible Siobhán? He laughed again, decided to indulge her. That would surprise _her_! She wouldn't expect that! "Savawn, you fucking bitch!"

Backed against the side of the car, Pepper made a face, as though to say he wasn't really trying, if that was the best he could do. "Shiv as in shiver," she said. "Awn as in yawn. Shiv-awn!"

Duke grinned, amused. "Sheba, you stupid fucking bitch!"

Pepper glowered. "My name is Siobhán, Duke. How would you like if I started calling you names? Roger? Pierce?"

Duke stopped smiling. What the hell was she on about?

She looked cross for a moment. "I don't remember them all!" she said dismissively, and went back to glaring at him, car keys pointed at him.

Duke narrowed his eyes. "What the fuck, Sheba?"

Pepper stifled a giggle. "James Bond," she told him slowly with her best British accent that sounded more like Michael Caine from _Miss Congeniality_ than either Roger Moore or Pierce Brosnan. "007."

Duke snickered and stared at his gold and maroon hawk pin pinned to the breast of her diner uniform beside her name tag.

Pepper saw where his gaze was directed, assumed that he was neither trying to find out her name to make some line with the vague notion of picking up, nor staring at her breasts, and lifted her left hand to finger the pin. "You want this," she told him firmly, back to her John Wayne accent, "you take a step back right now!"

Duke's eyes flashed, suddenly angry.

"No, I didn't say glower," Pepper told him, "I said step back."

Duke took a begrudging half-step backward, away from her, though he figured in he rushed her, there wouldn't be much she could do, she would still be stuck up against the car on one side and him on the other.

Pepper reached up her right hand, which was holding the key, and fumbled with the pin to get it undone.

Duke noticed that her hands were shaking and smiled.

When she had undone the pin from her uniform, she held it out in her left hand, car key still held firmly in her right hand and once more pointed at him. "Take it," she told him, her voice not as steady as before now that she could see that both of her hands, pushed out in front of her, were shaking.

Duke's hand didn't shake a bit when he extended a hand to take the hawk pin from her, but, expecting him to open his palm so that she could drop it into his hand, Pepper let go of it and it fell to the concrete beneath their feet with a dull ringing sound.

Duke swore loudly and dropped to his knees after it, and Pepper backed quickly into the side of her car, shaking from head to toe, and car key waving wildly in front of her. She watched him pick the pin up and start to stand. "Now go!" she told him loudly, voice shaking all over.

Duke straightened up and eyed her momentarily. It would take much for him to take her, she was too terrified to even hold the damn key straight in front of her. "What's wrong, Sheba?" he asked in a concerned voice, stepping closer to her.

"I said 'Go'!" she said, voice shaky and high in fear.

"Oh no," he told her, seizing the hand holding the key and shoving it down at her side as he drew level with her, less than half a step between them. "You're the one who's been following me, sweetheart!"

"Please go," she whimpered, dropping all pretence at an American accent, tears gathering like clouds in her dark eyes.

Duke laughed, the sound hollow and menacing, and raised a hand from where it had been planted on the side of the car, preventing Pepper's escape.

Pepper threw her arms around him and held him very tightly, and he could hear that she was crying, and the tears were running into her mouth, and finally he could feel them soaking through his shirt, and Pepper was talking, almost rambling: "I forgive you. I don't want to hurt you. Whatever you need to do to those girls for whatever reason, you can do it to me. I won't try to stop you." And then she was crying, sobbing horribly, only crying because she couldn't talk anymore, she couldn't even breathe properly, she kept making odd, intermittent hitching, gulping noises, and her hair smelt like strawberries.

Duke thought about putting his hands around her neck and snapping it, or strangling her, but instead he lifted her chin and pressed his lips to hers and they tasted like strawberries and salt.

* * *

"What are you doing out here, Duke?" a puffy voice asked, out of breath, and Duke turned to see James jogging toward him and realised that Pepper – Siobhán – had gone, that he'd let her go. Again.

"Needed some air," he said to James, who shrugged.

"So, my car's over there," James told him, and pointed to his car, an orange Daewoo hatchback.

Duke gave a half-shrug in response and followed him to the parked car, parked across two parking spaces instead of neatly in just one, though it was small enough to do so with ease.

"So, where's your stuff?" James asked, pressing a button on a small object attached to the same key ring as his car key to unlock the doors.

Duke shrugged. He didn't have anything else, just what he was wearing, and a few things he had stowed in his pockets.

"Cool," James replied, nodding, and pressed the button again frowning at the small dark object in his hand. "Maybe the battery's dead," he suggested, and walked around the car to the driver's side door to unlock the door and climb in and hit the central locking button to unlock the other doors from inside.

Duke heard the locks disengage and pulled the front passenger's side door open and got inside, feeling claustrophobic in the small orange hatchback.

"Cool badge," James remarked, shooting him a short glance, and turned the key to switch on the ignition and start the engine, though Duke could hardly tell that it was running at all when it started. "What is it, an eagle?"

"Hawk," Duke replied, wishing James would pay more attention to where he was backing, and wondering why he needed to be backing at all when they could have gotten out without doing so, there had been no car blocking their way due to James's great effort at parking in the first instance.

James was 22 and a young man. Duke supposed he'd just have to put up with it for the time being, and hoped James didn't turn the stereo system up too loud, which was exactly what James did do, and it wasn't Elvis Presley or Roy Orbison he was playing, which Duke wouldn't have minded, but something modern and all bass and disruptive glitches and repeats where there should have been a melody, and a piano or a guitar or a violin or some other instrument, and the vocals were something between a sore throat and a shriek but not singing, no, not singing, and Duke frowned. He wasn't that old.

He wondered what sort of music Pepper liked, but figured it was all River Dance or campfire chants or church bells tolling, or worse – given her taste in chapsticks and shampoo – _The Sound of Music_ or Disney's _Pocahontas_.

Then he wondered if he was getting old, if that was it, if something unseen or unknown had changed with Donny's death, and now he was getting old. He hadn't killed Keiran or Marietta, after all, and he hadn't killed Pepper.

* * *

Her name was Sierra, but Pepper got in the way of that too. Called James up in the middle of the night with the card she'd seen him leave the nurse to ring him on and asked to speak to Duke, if he was staying with him, or asked him to pass on her number and have Duke ring her back on that if he wanted. Wouldn't say why, hung up just when Duke walked in to ask who it was on the telephone at this hour and wondering why, if it was a girl, James hadn't just given her his cell phone number like any sensible person.

James replaced the receiver and looked around at Duke. "Peter," he replied without the slightest inclination of interest colouring his voice. "I bet she's Russian mafia or KGB," he said vaguely. "I don't know how else she could have gotten my number." He shrugged tiredly.

"What did she want?" Duke asked.

James opened the refrigerator and then shut it again, without having taken anything out. "You," he replied, stopping in front of the kitchen sink and squinting at the taps.

"Why?" Duke pressed.

James shook his head, still squinting at the taps. He laughed, then turned to face Duke. "Damn! Yeah, she didn't say why." He started toward the door, muttering, "I don't know what the KGB would want with me, I've never done anything to them."

Duke blinked, wondering if James was mentally ill and had forgotten to take his pills, or if maybe his pills really didn't work at all.

"Night, man," James mumbled through the wall. "Peter left her number. It's next to the phone."

Duke walked over to the phone and picked the Post-it note off the wall with a string of ten digits – a cell phone number – and 'Peter' scrawled underneath. He walked back to the room he was staying in and retrieved his spare disposable cell phone from the top drawer of the bureau beside the bed, and leant against the bureau and keyed in the ten digit number and waited for Pepper to pick up. Which she didn't.

She rang him back three hours later, and woke him, which didn't have him in a good mood, and then told him everything in three breaths and finished with: everything's fine, he needn't worry, she'd just woken him in the middle of the night for nothing, and an attitude.

"Baby was running a temperature, and I was worried, but the doctor said she'll be fine," she explained, and paused. He heard her take a breath, wondered if she'd been walking up flights of stairs, or running to catch an elevator before the doors closed. "I took her in and the doctor gave her some medicine and said to watch her and to keep up giving her the medicine and she'll be fine." Another breath, not heavy, but audible. "She's fine now, so there's nothing to worry about."

"Why did you do this?" he growled.

"What do you mean?" Pepper responded.

He noticed she was speaking with her John Wayne accent again. "Why did you call me?" he growled.

Pepper took a half-breath that might have been the beginning of a sob or a sniff. "She's- No, you know what, you're right. I'm sorry I woke you at this time of the night, and goodnight, and," her voice broke in the middle, "have a nice life." Then he heard the dial tone, and then nothing.

He returned the cell phone to the drawer and slammed it shut, irritated. He didn't see what Pepper had to be pissed about – she wasn't the one who'd been woken in the middle of the God damned night/morning/whatever it was by an idiot on a cell phone!

He switched the light off and lay back down and glared at the darkened wall, thinking about Sammi, and wondering if he should just leave town and be done with Pepper.

* * *

He was standing in an aisle in the small food store, watching Sierra go about her daily routine in the deli she worked at across the street, when he heard someone say: "Oh, it's you," and there was Pepper, and a three-month-old baby.

He refrained from slapping her across the face, thinking that if he did that she would probably drop the baby and there'd be a lot of crying and howling and people would inevitably come rushing over and start asking stupid questions like what had happened, and then Pepper would probably tell them what had happened, and he'd have to make a quick exit, or she'd try to lie, and they would buy it, or they wouldn't, or then someone would have called the police or the ambulance or both, or someone would give him a strange look because he really wasn't that bothered – and it was a whole lot of trouble he didn't need. Instead, he stepped to one side to let her pass, or to step around her and move on. It wouldn't do to stay too long in the one place anyway.

"Duke, Captain," Pepper introduced. "Captain, Duke."

Duke made a face and stepped around her. "I don't need this," he told her, without even bothering to sound angry, and walked away from the pair.

Pepper wheeled about and followed him.

He listened to the slap of her sneakers behind him, before he, too, spun about to confront her.

But before he could open his mouth to yell at her, she'd grabbed his hand and was holding on to it as though she meant to cut his circulation off. "What do you want?" she asked in a lowered voice. "Do you need to do something? Now?"

He yanked his hand sharply from her grasp, but he wasn't quick enough to step back and put enough distance between them to stop her from taking hold of it again.

"I want to be there for you," she told him, without bothering to lower her voice, and stared into his eyes with her dark brown gaze.

* * *

She couldn't breathe, his hands were fastened too tightly around her neck, and her eyes had started to water, and then she was just crying, and her hands that were pressed against his chest in no more than a superficial effort to fend him off fell limp at her sides, and the pale skin on her face was turning ever bluer, and when he relaxed his hold, she slipped out of his grasp and collapsed to the floor at his feet and slumped against his shoes, and he stared at her trying to breathe, trying to remember how to breathe, and the blue slowly receding from her face and the tips of her fingers – so unlike her own fingers from two years ago at all – and watched the tears still rolling down her face, the same tears that had run onto his hands and between his fingers and wet his palms.

For a moment, he glanced up to see that the baby – Captain – was alright, and, of course, she was, still asleep, so he looked back down at Pepper, lying on the floor, and thought about kicking her, but then she was drawing into a ball and bunching up and then she was on her feet and standing in front of him, face shining with tears and too pale.

"You'll need to get a scarf," Duke told her, and she was still trying too hard to breathe to nod.

But she said in a raspy, graty, almost-not-there voice: "I'm sorry, I didn't know what you wanted me to do, but that's not…" there was a long pause before she continued, several gasped breaths, "your fault, it's mine, I should have asked beforehand." More breaths, and then she blinked, tears floating down her already flooded cheeks. "Do you… want to do something else…? Or can I quickly check… on Captain… first?"

He put his arms out and held her upper arms to stop her swaying, wishing he had kicked her, but maybe next time, he decided, and nodded. "The baby's fine, but by all means, check on it if you want. I'm done."

Pepper took heaving unsteady breaths. "Thank you," she gasped. "Her."

"What?"

"Her, not it," she said, trying painfully not to make it sound like a criticism. John Wayne had left the building, maybe even the state, or the whole country. She was Irish again, at least, her words.

He made a face, slapped her half-heartedly across the face.

She blinked, eyelashes sticking to her skin, wet with tears.

For a moment, he wondered if it would be polite to say something, then he decided against it, and backed her, hard, into the wall, and kissed her, wondering what she'd done with those disgustingly high high heels she'd worn once, and if she still had them, kissed her until both their mouths tasted like blood and strawberries.

* * *

He hadn't really been angry, he reflected, and wondered what it would have been like if he had, and then, remembering the gold and maroon hawk pin he was wearing, realised that what he really missed – apart from Donny – was the hunt.

* * *

When he next saw Pepper, a day later, she was wearing a scarf with a floral pattern with not a hint of bruise showing, but when she carefully undid the knot and took her scarf off, the marks that had earlier been pink, and then red, had gone a nasty shade of dark blue, almost brown.

He asked about the baby, Captain.

She was fine, Pepper told him. She was at crèche.

He put his hands around her neck, but didn't squeeze hard, and watched her trying not to flinch and smiled.

Did she still have the heels she'd worn… with the trench coat? he asked her, and she gave a small nod, so he told her to wear them the next time they saw each other, and she gave another small nod.

"I will," she said, and John Wayne was back in business today.

The scarf wasn't quite right, he told her. Maybe a zebra print would do better. Something black and white.

* * *

And of course, that was what she was wearing with her disgustingly high high heels and a tight black tee shirt dress, Captain in her pram, a day after.

She cried and bit her hand until it bled, stuffed into her mouth to stop herself from crying out, what he did to her with those high heels, but she didn't wake Captain, and that was a good effort, even he had to admit, though he'd had to tell her off about her hand, but he bought her an ice-cream from one of those stands all the same, and they'd sat down to eat their ice-creams and she didn't even flinch, though she'd asked if she might wear her sunglasses, and he'd said, later, yes.

* * *

They went on that way for another four months, in which time James had managed to hook and then lose again, a girlfriend, and Sierra got to live again another day, and Duke decided that it was probably time to let Sierra go and move on.

He wondered, if he and Sammi were to ever have children, what they would look like. He didn't think they'd look anywhere near as pale as Captain, and they certainly would never have such an idiotic name, but he was sure they would have his eyes. After all, even Captain had his eyes, though she had Pepper's black hair, which was almost always dyed ginger, and even though it disgusted him, he didn't ask her to change it, so she didn't.

Pepper was crying when she called him on the disposable cell phone number, but all she said was that Captain was fine, but she wanted to talk to him, and right before she hung up, that Captain was fine, again.

He thought about not going, then decided that he'd might as well. He'd never been to Pepper's place before, in any case, and he wanted to see where Captain lived, if it was a good place for a baby to live or not.

Pepper and Captain lived in an apartment above a Chinese fast food restaurant, but no, Pepper said, still crying, as hard as she tried not to, they were Taiwanese, not Chinese, and Duke thought about slapping her, but decided against it.

"Why are you crying?" he asked, without any pretence at concern. He wasn't concerned. He was annoyed. Her constant crying was annoying, and it was hard to understand what she was saying when she was crying and talking at the same time.

Then he wanted to hit her and hit her and scream at her. He hadn't hurt anyone, he hadn't hurt Sierra!

"I'm sorry, Duke!" she gasped. "I'm so sorry! I didn't mean for it to happen. I'm sorry." And then after that all she would say was that she was sorry, over and over again.

He wondered if it was weak, gullible Siobhán making a reappearance, and if she was going to beg him to let her go, to just let her go – as if he needed her – and thought that it was about time.

"Stop saying you're sorry, Sheba, and tell me what you've done!" he growled, thinking it best not to cuss in front of Captain, who was now seven-months-old, and though in the other room, might wake and hear, and took hold of Pepper by an arm and shook her about a bit and slapped her across the face a couple of times.

She got up off the armchair she was seated in close to him, sitting on the sofa, and scooted over and sat down at his feet, resting her head on his knees and hugging his legs.

For a moment, he wanted to laugh. Maybe she was going to tell him that she was dying. That she'd rung the FBI and that they'd be here to take him away any moment. Or maybe she would pull out a gun and shoot him dead and then tell the police – over his still warm body – that he'd been trying to rob her, or something else of that nature.

"I just want Captain to be happy," she sobbed into his knees, and he took a handful of her fake ginger hair in his fist and whipped her head up so that she was looking into his face and he could look into her face, except for the tears that were always in the way.

He wanted to shout at her, he wanted to kick her, he wanted to kill her – if something had happened to Captain – but he could see that nothing had happened to Captain, though he couldn't see Captain with his own eyes, he could see Pepper's face, and Pepper's face said that nothing had happened to Captain. He allowed himself to relax a little and took his hand from out of Pepper's hair.

Her head didn't fall back down on to his knees and he noticed that she had finally stopped crying. She stared into his eyes. "I'm pregnant," she said, and before he could so much as think about what she had told him, she was kissing his knees, and his hands, putting his hands around her throat, begging him "please, please, please" not to hurt it, not to make her hurt it, to let her keep it, to let them keep it, to let Captain keep it, and then, when it was born, he could kill her if he wanted. She didn't care, as long as he let it live.

He sat there, and stared at her, and something inside didn't feel right, didn't feel the way it should have, but he reached out and pulled her into his arms and onto his lap and held her very tightly – she couldn't even move how tightly he was holding her – and told her that he would let her keep it if she promised never ever to betray him, because if she did, then he would cut it out of her, then he would kill Captain, and only then, after she'd watched and heard him kill her daughter, would he come back and finish her off. And she promised that she never would so many times that he thought that, had Never been a fairy, she would have come to life right there in that room in front of them and flown all around fluttering her fairy wings and doing fairy things.

He relaxed his arms and just held her, for a long time, until she sniffed and said: "After it's born, kill me, but not before. Please, just not before."

He whispered in her ear that he wanted to see Captain's room, Captain slept in the same room Pepper did, and they stood up and walked to the one bedroom and Captain was sleeping, but fine, and they moved to the bed where they sat down and Duke thought about the time Pepper had visited him at James's place and he had chased her all around the house with a knife from the kitchen, and the look James had given them when he'd walked in, and then when Duke had explained that Pepper was an actress, and, proudness shining in his eyes, asked, wasn't she good?

Her turned Pepper's chin so that she was looking into his eyes, and felt himself sinking into her dark gaze and tilted her chin up so he could kiss her, and she turned so that her shoulder wasn't digging into his chest and he could feel her breast rising and falling as she breathed, and he thought, if he had been anyone else, he could have loved her, he could have loved her that first time he had seen her in _American Heroes_ in Ireland, even though she was fat and weak and gullible, he could have fallen in love with her anyway. But he wasn't someone else, he was Duke Rawlins, and then he thought, what if he had fallen in love with her? What if what he really thought meant something else, meant that he was in love with Pepper – with Siobhán?

And then she was underneath him, and he was inside her, and he never wanted her to stop using that strawberry shampoo or body mist or whatever it was that made her smell like strawberries, and he wanted to tell her to leave, and it made him mad and sick and it hurt, all at the same time, and he thought about all of the things he could do to convince her that she should leave: he could kill Sierra, or James; he could ring the FBI, or the NYPD, himself and tell them to come and get him – he was sure Detective Lucchesi would very much enjoy that – he could hit her, tell her that he had decided just to kill her, he didn't need her anymore, she was holding him back.

But then Pepper was smiling, and somehow she'd gone from underneath to on top, and he thought that she really did have a beautiful smile, and he thought he'd let everything just stay the way it was, if only for one day longer.


	2. Chapter 2

**before I breathe** by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own _Darkhouse_ or any of its characters.

* * *

Yeppa – young, beautiful, sweet, and part Native American Indian – who'd smiled at him from across the room – a dazzling, radiant smile – quickly looked away, embarrassed.

Duke, angered, slapped Pepper's hands away sharply, which, moments before, had been working on the bulge in the front of his pants.

Yeppa was sweet. She wouldn't want anything to do with him now! He pushed Pepper off him and stepped away from the wall she'd backed him into and grabbed a hold of the middle of one of her arms in a painful grip and yanked her forcibly after him, gritting his teeth, jaw set, in effort not to strike her or shout at her.

Outside the club, he slammed her up against a grimy alley wall, once, twice, three times. He'd been making progress, real fucking progress, and now she'd ruined the whole fucking thing! He wanted to punch her until she fell down at his feet and didn't get up again. She had no business following him around! And she had no business at any fucking club either!

Before she could make any sort of protest – she was blinking stupidly, slowly – he grabbed a handful of her fake ginger hair, wondering if he should rip it all out, and dragged her out of the alley toward the darkened parking lot – only one light was working – and, once he'd gotten the door open, forced her into the cab of his new black pick-up truck.

She was silent for the trip, her face cast downwards, hiding her expression from him. He drove through the city, and out of town, into the outskirts, and on to farmland, on to forest, the trees either side of the road thick and dark, but like cheap cardboard cut-outs in greys and blacks, except for when the pick-up's headlights would strike them, and they'd suddenly be doused in colour and life.

He manoeuvred the pick-up onto a rocky, dirt road, and the vehicle hit all the potholes as it moved along the track, further into the trees. He thought of Yeppa as he pulled the pick-up sharply to a side, into a little nook, a space of bare ground carved into the forest floor, and turned the key in the ignition to kill the engine, his face dark inside the darkened vehicle. Outside, he heard the sounds of little things, insects sighing, but inside, all was quiet, save for the sounds of breathing, and then, a soft creaking as Pepper shifted, and her small, warm hand came to rest on his leg, then curve around the inside of his thigh, sending uncomfortable jolts all the way up his legs. His feet felt strange, like they wanted to touch ground, to stamp, or kick.

He forced the door open roughly and yanked himself out of his seat, propelling himself out into the darkened night. It was cooler than he'd remembered, cooler than it had been outside the club, in town, and now, there weren't any sounds at all, no insects, not even the sound of the wind, or a low breeze. Maybe he'd only been imagining the insects before, he thought, and anger made his footsteps heavy.

Swiftly, he made his way around the vehicle, to Pepper's side, and pulled open the door, and, taking a handful of hair, hauled her out of her seat and clear of the vehicle, and threw her ahead of him, into the darkness.

He heard her hit the ground, a small painful sound, and strode purposefully after her, his strides now lighter, happier, and kicked out a boot until it connected, and kept kicking. He ignored Pepper's words, tuned them out as though they were a radio station he didn't much favour, but was forced to listen to on his daily commute. He kicked Pepper repeatedly, and while he was kicking her, he felt excitement and energy fill him, then restlessness.

He bent to retrieve her from the ground, and whispered low to the side of her face, "Run, bitch! Move those legs, just like before! Remember then? I'll be back for _you_!" Then he dropped her to the ground, and walked back to the pick-up, his strides calm, but focused.

At the back of the pick-up, he pulled out a crossbow and loaded it carefully, slowly. From the side, he heard the sounds of clambering, shuffling feet and hands, panicked and in pain, and he knew that Pepper had roused herself from the ground. A smile lit his face. Good, she was playing along nicely, exactly as planned. He didn't bother shutting the back as he left the pick-up and took after Pepper.

He traced her through the forest, only hanging back for fun, until they came out into farmland, the trees thinning completely, and he couldn't mess around anymore. He saw a fence line, just as he knew Pepper must, and felt her hope, and sinking despair. She'd never make it over in her condition.

He made it easy for her; left her no illusion, and shot an arrow through her right leg. She tumbled down; he went to retrieve his quarry.

Standing over her, he turned her over with his boot, but she didn't even make a sound. Her silent tears shone like liquid silver on her dirty face, and she remained unmoving.

Duke felt himself deflate, and fill with anger and weariness. He'd have to take her back now, and he'd have to do it all himself, she wasn't putting in any effort to help. He moved his boot, and stomped it down on her leg, watching pain fill her features, but still, no sound. He yanked the arrow from her leg, and thrilled at Pepper's sharp, distorted cry. He left the arrow on the ground, and hefted Pepper up and over his shoulder, and begun the trudge back to the pick-up.

Halfway there, he dropped her to the ground as though she were a sack of vegetables, potatoes, or turnips, and pointed the crossbow to her face. Her eyes didn't see him, and the muscles in her face didn't react at all, except to spasm rhythmically.

He lowered the crossbow and dropped to the ground after it, lying down and snuggling up to Pepper; with an arm, pulling her around on her side to face him. He told her, in a dead voice, of his love for her, two, three, ten times; then he grew angry and hit her, and, later, he was on top of her, and he watched her eyes rolling, and felt the spasms race, uncontrolled, thorough her body, and he had to have her. She was that fucking deer, the one from the kid's cartoon, and he was the hunter, consummating his kill.

The sun rose on them there, hours later, and he woke from his strange, cold slumber, almost thinking delightfully that Pepper had died whilst he'd been asleep, there, on top of her, but her limbs were loose when he hauled her into his arms and carried her back to the vehicle with him.

* * *

He dropped her off in the Emergency Room of a hospital, and left. Captain would need him; they'd start over, just the two of them. He'd be a father to her; she'd be his daughter, his little girl.

* * *

**One year later**

Captain had begun to tottle in earnest three months ago, and now she followed Duke from room to room like a faithful puppy dog. He'd left James, and moved town. He'd moved out of state, and he hadn't thought of Pepper since. At least, that was what he told himself. Still, he'd stayed clean, resisting the urge to go out nights, and letting the hookers he called in go every night.

He wanted something better for Captain he supposed.

He didn't know whether Captain thought about her mommy; Hell, perhaps she didn't even remember her; he liked it best when he could convince himself of that.

He changed his name, and became Sonny Crane; single father of one, Captain Crane. Somehow, he couldn't bring himself to change her name.

He'd find her a mommy one day, he would.

He got into law enforcement, for the heck of it, and everyday he was amused that they never even suspected a thing.

Maybe he'd even get Captain a mommy who was a cop.

* * *

**Five years later**

Poppy Torerro, a community care worker, had been shot five times in the stomach, before the man who'd shot her had put the gun to his own head and blown his brains out in front of his four-year-old daughter, Brite.

Sonny was late home that night; he'd had paper work to finish up. Captain was asleep when he went by her bedroom, and he stood in the doorway, watching her back as she slept, and wondering if she was pissed at him; he'd missed her seventh birthday party, he was a bad dad.

Presents and gift wrap littered the floor, and he spent a while picking things up, and tidying up in her room, before he headed for bed himself.

He had to be up early to drop by the hospital to question the care worker, assuming she'd made it through surgery and was awake and lucid. He was hungry, and he needed a shower, but he'd take one in the morning; he was just too tired right now.

He ended up taking the shower anyway, unable to sleep, and sat up long into the night, watching television and eating chips and peanuts from a packet, until he fell asleep in front of the blaring television set.

He woke in the morning to find Captain lying with him, asleep on the couch, and took her up to her room and lay her back down in her bed, feeling lousy and just as drained as he had before he'd drifted off to sleep, and he hadn't even gotten off to work yet.

* * *

After dropping Captain off for school; stopping by the office, and a drive-in for coffees, he drove around to the hospital with his partner, Ricki-Kane Murphy.

Ricki-Kane was still sipping her coffee when they reached the Torerro woman's hospital room, and Sonny got the door.

Poppy's hair was midnight against the brightness of the hospital linen, and the ghostly paleness of her skin, and Sonny felt sickness well up inside him like a stab to the gut. She'd put on weight, not much, but enough that it was noticeable in her face, but she was instantly recognisable.

She was sleeping, for which he was immediately thankful. He stood, staring at Siobhán, at Captain's mother, and suddenly he found himself hoping that she'd come through. It should have been the other way around, he knew, but here he was, weak-legged, _hoping_ she'd live, hoping the one woman who'd be able to bring Hell down on him would live.

He needed to get out of that room.

Fast.

* * *

"How'd the kid's party go?" Ricki-Kane asked, as she approached him minutes later, and paused by his side, standing outside the hospital's main entrance, watching smokers smoking, and cars move in and out of the parking lot.

"Never asked," he muttered, breathing deeply to try to calm himself and dispel some of the sick feeling swirling inside.

Ricki-Kane shrugged. "Didn't make it, huh?"

"Nope."

"Too bad."

"Yop."

Ricki-Kane turned to glance at him. "They don't stay mad for long," she told him, before heading out towards the vehicle. Ricki-Kane had three of her own. "Torerro's out; hospital say they'll holler if she comes 'round."

Sonny nodded shortly to no-one, keeping his head down, and followed her out across the parking lot. Ricki-Kane had said 'if,' not 'when.' He felt sicker, and forced his legs to hold him up, and keep moving.

* * *

Captain got home sporting a nasty bruise on her face. She told him it didn't hurt, though when he pressed it gently, she couldn't help a cringe, meaning it _did_ hurt.

Jane Jo Brightman had said a mean thing about him, she informed him, looking into his face deeply as she did, and she'd said a mean thing back, was why Jane Jo'd got her older brother, Jamee, to smack her face. But it'd been a real mean thing she'd said, so maybe it'd just been her lesson to get that smack; and it didn't hurt so much if she was tough and thought on that it didn't.

Sonny was furious. "How old is this Brightman boy?" he asked, doing his best to keep his voice from sounding like a bark, but he sure as Hell wanted to smack that boy back twice as hard just for daring to _touch_ his daughter.

"Nine, about," Captain answered. "Don't be mad at him, daddy, promise?"

"I ain't mad, Cappy, I'm angry," he told her.

"You know what I called Jane Jo?" Captain whispered, making her voice real low. "I called her a 'bitch ho!'"

Sonny's angered expression didn't budge.

"It was only coz she said she knew that you went around with all the women," here, she lowered her voice again, "'hussies,' she said they was called." Her eyes scrunched up a bit on his face, then widened again. "Is that true, daddy? Do you go around with hussies? I know what she meant, she meant sex. Do you have sex with them hussies, daddy?"

He jumped to his feet. He could not hear these things coming from his daughter's mouth, he could not hear these things from the daughter he loved. "Absolutely not!" he half-growled, half-shouted. Captain gave a frightened flinch, and he felt anger and fear twist inside him, combining. He dropped to his knees in front of her, ignoring the pain the action caused, and held her tightly in his arms. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry; I love you."

Captain sniffed against his chest. "Lloyd said he wanted me to be his hussy, but I told him I couldn't 'til I was seventeen. Isn't that the law, daddy? Isn't that right?"

Sonny stiffened and filed the name away for later reference. "Yes, baby. That's right."

* * *

The call came three days later, and Sonny was sent over alone. Poppy was sitting up in bed, watching Garfield on television when he walked into her room. She didn't look over, but kept watching the screen.

He made it all the way over to her bed, and she still hadn't looked around. He stood for a long moment, watching her face as she watched the television set. He felt himself move, then, but could not stop himself as he stepped forward, and bent to take her chin in his hand, his own hand shaking, and brought his face to meet hers, pressing his lips to her mouth.

* * *

_So awful, so lame! Thanks for reading._


End file.
